606 - The Creeping Terror
Air Date	September 17, 1994
AKA	Dangerous Charter The Crawling Monster
Movie Director	Arthur Nelson
Year	1964
Cast	Arthur Nelson (billed here as Vic Savage), Shannon O'Neil, William Thourlby
Preceded by	605 - Colossus and the Headhunters
Followed by	607 - Bloodlust!

Contents 1 The Movie 1.1 Synopsis 1.2 Information 2 The Episode 2.1 Host Segments 2.2 Other Notes 2.3 Obscure References 2.4 Video Release

The Movie

Synopsis

A mute alien creature that looks like a cross between a Chinese dragon puppet and the Pope lands on Earth in a NASA rocket and ingests those compliant people who cannot run faster than one mph into its maw. A newly-married deputy sheriff (director Arthur Nelson), a handsome scientist and an army "special unit" battle it to the end, with a sub plot about the evils of bachelorhood. [1]

Information

According to rumors, a more impressive-looking monster was originally designed and built for the movie. However, only a few days before shooting was to begin, the monster was stolen. Pressed for time and out of money, director Arthur Nelson and his crew hastily threw together the infamous pile-of-carpets monster that appears in the film. [2]

Another legend surrounding this film is that the original soundtrack recordings were lost due to falling into Lake Tahoe.  In reality, while Lake Tahoe was desired as a shooting location, the much cheaper Spahn Ranch was used instead.  The reason for the lost dialog is unclear, as it has been stated that the recordings were lost, that sound was never shot as a cost-saving measure, or that most of the shot sound was simply too low quality to make use of. The narrator was a local radio announcer. [3]

The Episode

Host Segments

Prologue: Tom Servo takes his new job as security guard on the SOL very seriously.

Segment One: While it's laundry day down in Deep 13, Dr. F uses Mike and the Bots to prove his theory that you can't be in a pretentious coffee house without becoming pretentious.

Segment Two: Crow creates a flag for the Satellite of Love and demands Mike salute it.

Segment Three: Mike and the Bots engage in hard hitting satire of... Love America Style.

Segment Four: Mike goes audiophile when he sets up his stereo, but has a hard time convincing the Bots of its features while playing the 1960's dance theme from the movie on it. Note how he enhances his CD's with green marker during the listening test.

Closing (Segment Five): Crow and Tom are partly successful in convincing Gypsy to swallow them like the Terror from the movie until Mike intervenes to reads a letter, while Dr. F "presses" Frank about the laundry.

Stinger: "My God! What is it?" a girl at the dance party blandly exclaims.

Other Notes

Miscellanea

• Unusual credits: The dance party music from the movie plays instead of "Mighty Science Theater".

Obscure References

• "Ponch and Jon are calling!"

Ponch and Jon were the heroes of CHiPs, a TV show about California highway patrolmen from the late 1970s and early '80s.

• "Looks like the inside of Robert Morley's nose!"

Robert Morley was British character actor.

• "Oh, no- Kopps!"

Mike is imitating the Simpsons character Snake.

• "Darkness at the edge of town!"

A reference to the Bruce Springsteen album "Darkness on the Edge of Town".

• "Oh God, it's 'Far Out Space Nuts'!"

A reference to the Sid and Marty Krofft TV show Far Out Space Nuts.

During this sentence (Oh God...) Tom is making strange noises. In fact he is imitating the sound effects used in Forbidden Planet (1956), when the invisible monster is inside the spaceship while the crew is sleeping.

• "Geez! My back is killing me! I came to this planet because I heard they had "Doans" pills!"

 "Doan's", ia an over-the-counter medication specifically marketed for back pain relief.

• "Annette Funicello wore khakis!"

A play on a Gap ad campaign from the mid-1990s.

• "Apparently, Dan Blocker had been there!"

Actor Dan Blocker is best remembered for playing Hoss Cartwright on Bonanza.

• "We push more logs before 9 A.M. than most people do all day!"

A parody of an old U.S. Army recruiting slogan.

• "Are we inside Television City?"

A reference to the CBS Television City studio complex in Los Angeles.

• "He thought it was Boog Powell!"

Boog Powell was a first baseman for the Baltimore Orioles during the 1960s and early '70s.

• "...no trace of either Ben or Jeff." "Or Akbar!"

Akbar and Jeff are two characters from Life in Hell, a comic strip by Simpsons creator Matt Groening.

• "Is she really going out with him?"

A reference to the Joe Jackson song "Is She Really Going Out With Him?"

• "The Unbearable Whiteness of Being!"

A play on the novel and movie The Unbearable Lightness of Being.

• "I shoulda gone to DeVry instead of Harvard!"

DeVry University, formerly known as the DeVry Institute, is a nationwide chain of adult-education centers that, unlike the latter, are not known for being that intellectually demanding nor prestigous.

• "Suddenly it's 'Wild Strawberries'!"

Wild Strawberries was a 1957 film directed by Ingmar Bergman.

• "El Kabong will kill it!"

El Kabong was the guitar-carrying, Zorro-esque alter ego of Quick Draw McGraw.

• "Only Tom Paxton can save us now!"

Tom Paxton is a folk singer/songwriter.

• "You can see why the British Invasion was so easy."

The British Invasion refers to the worldwide increase in popularity of music groups from England (notably The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, and The Who) during the mid-1960's. (reignited and continued by the new wave of British heavy metal in the 1980's)

• "Sponsored by Thom McAn!"

Thom McAn was a now-defunct chain of shoe stores, which were often found in shopping malls.

• "He slides like Ron Santo."

Ron Santo, third baseman for the Chicago Cubs in the '60's and early '70s.

• "This is 'Andy Warhol's Driving'."

A reference to artist Andy Warhol's experimental film Sleep, which consisted of eight hours' worth of footage of a sleeping man.

Video Release

• Commercially released on VHS by Rhino Entertainment in March 2000, the episode was also released at the same time as a part of a 3-VHS set with Bloodlust! and The Side Hackers.
• Commercially released on DVD by Rhino in November 2002 as part of The Mystery Science Theater 3000 Collection: Volume 1, a 4-DVD set with The Skydivers, Catalina Caper and Bloodlust!.
• The DVD release is a double-sided disc, with the MST version on one side and the un-MSTed movie on the other.

preceded by: Season 5		MST3K Season 6					followed by: Season 7
		1994 - 1995
601	Girls Town	1994-07-16	609	The Skydivers	1994-08-27	617	The Sword and the Dragon	1994-12-03
602	Invasion USA	1994-07-23	610	The Violent Years	1994-10-15	618	High School Big Shot	1994-12-20
603	The Dead Talk Back	1994-07-31	611	Last of the Wild Horses	1994-10-15	619	Red Zone Cuba	1994-12-17
604	Zombie Nightmare	1994-11-24	612	The Starfighters	1994-10-29	620	Danger!! Death Ray	1995-01-07
605	Colossus and the Headhunters	1994-08-20	613	The Sinister Urge	1994-11-05	621	The Beast of Yucca Flats	1995-01-21
606	The Creeping Terror	1994-09-17	614	San Francisco International	1994-11-19	622	Angels Revenge	1995-03-11
607	Bloodlust	1994-09-03	615	Kitten with a Whip	1994-11-23	623	The Amazing Transparent Man	1995-03-18
608	Code Name: Diamond Head	1994-10-01	616	Racket Girls	1994-11-26	624	Samson vs. the Vampire Women	1995-03-25